How to Queue Jump at Any Convention… (and Get Away With It)

Ah conventions, they can be a beautiful thing, can’t they? In fact, some of the best happenings in our wonderfully nerdy world take place at conventions. Whether its star-studded panels that reveal tasty new morsels about the hottest TV shows or cons that offer world exclusive demos of the next must play game, no matter what you love, cons are an undeniably brilliant way to celebrate the art you love.

There’s only one problem though, hundreds of thousands of other people are also rushing to see the same awesome things as you. So how do you squeeze it all in?

Well, that’s where we come in. A few weeks ago, FANDOM went to cover the world’s largest gaming convention, Gamescom. Taking place in Cologne Germany, Gamescom is renowned for attracting some of the most dedicated gaming fans in the world. With queues for some demos taking more than 7 hours, fans regularly lose their entire day queuing for just one game.

"HOT SOUP, HOT SOUP, coming through!"

Thankfully, our host Zac Fox is fluent in the ancient art of queue-skip-fu – and more importantly, he has very little shame.

The Fantastic Mr Fox, in all his infinite wisdom, has come up with 8 ancient techniques that are guaranteed to help get you instantly through an intimidating queue. From the mystic art of misdirection to hot soup, begging to bribing people with food/money, pretending to be asleep midline and er even making fake friends — nothing is off the table when it comes to the art of skip-fu.

But with Zac going up against these ultra-committed German gamers, has he finally met his match?

Check out the video above all in it’s cringey, Metal Gear Esque con-conning glory. Be warned, these ancient queue-fu. techniques are not for the faint-hearted. Don’t try this at your local convention unless you have your very own Zac.

Having written for everyone from Trusted Reviews to The Guardian, Tom is a London based writer who can't stop talking about games. Now he's joined the team at FANDOM as gaming editor, we have to constantly remind ourselves that he's not actually Ed Sheeran.

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